Foxconn Becomes Largest Microsoft Patent Licensee, Pays Royalty Per Android And Chrome Device

Microsoft just scored a coup on the patent royalty front, with a new deal with Taiwanese phone maker, Hon Hai, which owns Foxconn. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will get paid a flat fee per Android and Chrome-based device that Foxconn makes. And there are a lot of those. A whopping 40 percent of the world’s phones come from the firm’s China-based factories. Foxconn is an ODM, or “original design manufacturer”, and makes Android devices for clients like Acer and Amazon (it makes the Kindle Fire). It’s famous for making iPhones and iPads as well. The exact patents licensed were not revealed, but Microsoft has been famously litigious on the patent scene. With regard to the Android OS, legal documents filed in 2010 against Motorola and against Barnes & Noble in 2011 give some clues. One of its patent claims is against a way that long and short file names are implemented, and is linked to the FAT16 file system used by older Microsoft OSes like MS-DOS and Windows. Other patents ...

acer agreement amazon android devices apple barnes business china-based chrome chrome-based documents extortion foxconn google hai hon htc ipads iphones kindle management microsoft motorola ms-dos noble odm oses payments pegatron quanta samsung statement taiwanese windows